At the end of last week I got so obsessed with writing this story, I completely ran out of time to post my other gardening mix last week.

My 12-year-old self is so tempted right now

Who didn’t think the dandelion was the best flower ever when they were little? They were the best for making flower chains and headbands. You could use them as crayons. If you held one under your chin the amount that it glowed on your skin predicted how rich you would be. And it was insanely fun to blow the all the seeds away into the wind.

Most of us can still remember those days when we were young tots (tadpoles!) buckling up for the seven-hour nightmare of a drive with our family and any mysterious body odors they chose to bring along with them. Sure, road trips can be miserable… if you want them to. But that was not the case in my recent criss-crossing of this country from LA to NYC. I strapped on an optimistic, eager attitude towards some good-ol’-Lewis-and-Clark-style exploration and packed up my VW Jetta (she’s my lil’ Sacagawea) with one personal challenge in mind: to conquer the southern United States by simply driving through it. Ambitious, I know, but that’s how old-school explorers operate. So without further ado, I hereby claim this Tadpole Audio guest mixtape mine in the name of music-loving travelers everywhere!

She also enjoys craft beer, entertaining friends, good coffee, living on the border of Silverlake and Echo Park, but being a Connecticut girl at heart, adventures large and small with her husband and two cats, roadtrips, spin, yoga, and brunch.